Over
by The Fake Book
Summary: Nick's finally figured Gil out and tells him so. Gil's reaction isn't quite what Nick expected. Originally posted under the flashofgenius ID over at Oh No, Nicky community on LiveJournal
1. Chapter 1

**Over**

**by**

**Vengeance Unlimited**

**Pairing: Gil/Nick  
Category: Angst/Drama  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Please don't sue me, Mr. Bruckheimer.  
Summary: Nick's finally figured Gil out and tells him so. Gil's reaction isn't quite what Nick expected. (Originally posted under the flashofgenius ID over at Oh No, Nicky on LiveJournal)**

_"So it's over."_

He'd replayed the moment often in his memories and nightmares and, every time, he tried to will his former self to say, "Fuck you, Grissom! It's _not _over!"

And it wasn't. Not now. Maybe not ever. And he was tired of pretending that it was, just because of his sick desire to please the man even if it meant killing himself in the process. Slowly, surely. Every time he shoved something he felt down for fear of disappointing Grissom, of appearing weak, Nick knew he was committing some sort of passive suicide.

He knew he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer _fuck that that's Grissom talking not you _but he was smart enough to take something constructive away from all the shit that he'd been put through in his life.

He had to get away from Vegas.

He had to get away from Gil Grissom.

So, in the week after Greg's inquest, when Grissom had shown Sanders more support than he'd _ever _shown Nick, Nick had drafted his letter. And now, he was sitting on Grissom's couch wondering almost hysterically why he had chosen to meet the man here to give him the letter instead of in some place neutral. Some place where he wouldn't be forced to contemplate all the good he was giving up just because he was too much of a pussy to handle the bad.

_Grissom again not you_

"Nick?"

The soft voice jerked him out of his thoughts and right into those eyes.

"Hm?"

Grissom pointed a finger at the envelope in his hand.

"If that's for me, you mind handing it over? I really would like to get some sleep some time this week."

Oh.

Nick handed the letter over, hoping Griss didn't catch the little tremor in his hand.

"You okay?"

He should be so lucky.

"Yeah," he said, dragging a palm over his face. "Just jacked up on coffee, I guess."

Grissom gave him one of _those _looks. The one he gave people to let them them feel secure until he dropped the other shoe. Nick hated that look when it was fixed on him.

"So what is this?"

Nick shook his head. He didn't have the guts to explain it. If he had to say the words out loud to Grissom, he knew he would chicken out. _and that's all you talkin' cowboy_

"You read it. You're a smart man. You'll be able to figure it out."

Nick knew he should have left then. Left Grissom alone with that letter and let him wonder if he was behind it. Let him stew in his own self-doubt. But he didn't trust the older man to _get it_. That would be giving Grissom too much credit. He was going to make sure Grissom knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it _was _his fault.

"You're quitting, Nick? You mind telling me why?"

Grissom had just opened the door that Nick had been desperately waiting to walk through for years. All he had to do now was take that first step. All he had to do was get his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth and say the words.

"Because of you."

It felt like he trying to speak through a mouthful of blood and chewed glass. He could even taste that familiar metallic tang on the back of his tongue. It still didn't hurt as much as he thought it should have and that threw Nick.

"I'm sorry, Nick. I'm not following you."

Now there... _there _it was. The truth that brought with it the awful pain Nick felt to his very core. That took his breath away.

Grissom had never followed him. Had never understood him.

_never cared enough to even try_

"I can't take it any more, Grissom. I can't take you anymore."

The older man started to speak but Nick held up his hand, shushing him.

"Nope," he said with a shake of his head. "It's my turn to talk now. It's your turn to listen for a change."

He spoke for more than an hour. He got angrier with Grissom by the minute.

"I used to mess up dumb stuff on purpose just so you'd yell at me." _Use your head, Nicky. _"I didn't like that you thought I was an idiot. Didn't like that you were more than willing to tell me so but I thought that was better than being invisible to you."

That earned Nick nothing but an almost imperceptible nod so he charged on with his speech and his pacing around Grissom's living room as Gil sat on the couch.

"Whenever I work a case with any of the other guys, we feel it. We feel it. We aren't ashamed of feeling it and we trust each other enough that we don't have to worry about being perceived as weak or being bagged on for feeling it. I don't know about Greggo or Warrick but I don't trust you like that. Not as my supervisor and certainly not as someone I thought was a friend."

Another nod and still not a word. The part of Nick didn't want to hurt Grissom lost the fight with the other part of him. The part that wanted Grissom to suffer as much as he had made Nick suffer. He knew it was immature. He knew it was vindictive. He didn't care any more.

"I thought something was wrong with me, Gil, but I know better now. _You_ are the one who's wrong! I used to think you are the way you are because you're afraid to get close. Afraid if you started caring about things, you'd start thinking with your heart instead your head." He laughed then, a sick, almost hysterical laugh as the realization hit him. "But there isn't a heart there for you to think with. There's only your head and your ego and it makes you think you're superior to the rest of us mere mortals that have to deal with stupid shit like fear, grief, compassion and love!"

A flinch, finally, a flicker of pain in those blue eyes. Maybe it was because he was yelling. Maybe it was because it was true. Or maybe it was because he really had hurt the man's feelings but Nick couldn't afford to think about it. If he did, he was afraid that lingering self-doubt would resurface.

"Let me ask you a question, and I swear to God Gil, you better be honest." He didn't wait for Grissom to acknowledge the request. "Why did you even bother saving me? Amy Hendler. Nigel Crane. Walter Gordon. Take your pick and tell me why."

Nick fully expected Gil to chicken out and take the easy one in Amy Hendler. He nearly swallowed his tongue when Gil said, "Walter Gordon took the wrong CSI when he took you, Nick. You are the strongest man I have ever met. What you think makes you weak, makes you that much stronger than everyone else. _You_ kept yourself alive because _you _didn't want to die, because you knew how much losing you would hurt the rest of us. Even me. Especially me."

Nick shook his head repeatedly, his lips pressed together in a tight frown. He didn't know what he had expected Gil to say but this sure wasn't it. And he wasn't expecting what Gil did next. He walked over to Nick and took his face in his hands, palms warm on his cheeks. Nick looked him in the eye then and wondered at the way they glistened.

"Nick," he said softly. "I should have told you a long time ago. You never disappointed me."


	2. Chapter 2

"So why didn't you tell me," Nick asked. He tried to keep his tone emotionless, his eyes blank because his heart soared at finally knowing the truth while his stomach sank at the realization that it wasn't enough.

_too little but is it really too late? _

"Do you get off on making people feel like something stuck to the bottom of your shoe, waiting to be scraped off on the next curb you come across?"

Gil practically dove away from him, almost as if he'd been hit. Nick knew he was fucked up but he took a perverse sort of pleasure in the fact that he'd finally cracked the man's facade of cool detachment, that he'd finally earned a show of real emotion.

"Hits a little too close to home, doesn't it Griss?"

"Shut up, Nick."

His face was buried in his hands, his back pressed against one of the living room walls. His words were thick, like he was trying not to cry. Nick didn't care.

_keep telling yourself that and you might believe it one day_

"I still don't know why you did it, Griss. If I was as big a pain in your ass as you made me feel I was, why did you save me?"

Nick didn't know what possessed him to do what he did next. He raised his arm, straight out...

_If you can hear me..._

"... put your hand on my hand. I've been tryin' _to_ hear you, Gil. I've been listenin' _so _hard but you ain't been talkin' and I can't keep up anymore. I'm so tired and sometimes I wish..."

He shook his head. He wasn't going to say It out loud. Not to Gil and certainly not to himself. If he vocalized It, that would make it that much easier to give in to and to give up.

_I wish you had just let me die_

"Oh Nicky. Oh no no no..."

Nick heaved a shuddering sigh and couldn't fight the tears that came when Gil raised his own arm and pressed their palms together. Couldn't fight the tears as Gil slid his fingers between Nick's own and used the leverage to pull Nick into his arms. Nick fought him briefly before letting what was left of the fight drain from his body and letting himself melt into Gil's embrace.

"Nicky please," Gil whispered desperately in his ear, his breath hot against Nick's skin. "Please don't give up."

"Why," Nick asked quietly. "Because I shouldn't want to die over someone that doesn't love me?"

Gil pushed him away slightly so he could look in Nick's eyes.

_Here it comes, Stokes. Time for the curb kickin'. Take it like a man._

"No you numb skull," Gil said gently, a sad smile spreading across his face. "Because I do love you and I'm too much of a social retard to just come out and tell you."

Nick opened his mouth once, twice, so many times he started to look a bit like a fish out of water. Finally he managed to say, "All you had to do was say so."

Then he finally fulfilled the only good dream he had since...

_God his lips are softer than I ever imagined_

And they were pressed to his, tentatively at first, but then opening to his gentle ministrations. When Gil slid his tongue seductively inside Nick's mouth, Nick gave up on gentle and gave into the six years of frustrated passion he'd felt for the man.

"Oh God Gil!"

Gil liked the sound of that coming from Nick's mouth and he chuckled... or he would have if Nick hadn't chosen that moment to grab his cock through his now too tight jeans.

"Oh _God _Nicky!"

Nick grinned _that _grin at him, that self-satisfied, cocky grin that Gil hadn't seen in so long and it hit Gil liked a ten-pound hammer.

It was his fault Nick had lost that grin... had lost his confidence in himself. He saw that now, finally, and right then and there he decided he was going to do his damnedest to help Nick get that back. And he was going to start by...

"Oh no Griss," Nick said as he pushed Gil's hands away from his belt. Gil looked at him wonderingly, confused.

"Nicky please? I love you and I want to--"

Nick placed a single finger across his lips, shushing him, still grinning like he knew a secret and wasn't going to share it with Gil.

"I love you too, Gil. That's why you don't get to be the top this time."

Maybe Nick hadn't lost so much confidence after all.

Afterwards in Gil's bed, as Gil lay sleeping by his side, Nick realized that his future plans were still the same, despite all that he and Gil had said and done and shared at last. But if the possibility of that plan had hurt before he'd finally come clean with Gil, it didn't hurt any more.

For the first time in a long time, Nick felt hopeful and at peace.

Sliding out of bed quietly so as not to wake Gil, he snuck back downstairs. Padding into the kitchen, he found a small pad of paper and a pen by the coffee pot that Gil used for grocery lists. Standing at the counter, he began writing.

Gil awoke to the shrill ring of the telephone on his nightstand and nearly had it against his ear when he realized he had reached across an empty spot in his bed that should have been occupied by Nick.

"Grissom," he said as normally as he could despite the pain building up in his chest.

"Gil, it's Catherine. Have you talked to Nick today?"

They'd done a lot more than talk but he wasn't about to tell her that. He sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, taking a minute to gather his thoughts before answering her.

"Yeah Cat, why?"

"So you know he resigned? We all got goodbye letters, Gil," she said, rattling off the list of usual suspects. "Hell, he even wrote Sanders one. Did you get one?"

It was then that Gil noticed the envelope laying next to the phone. It wasn't the resignation papers Nick had given him earlier but it sat on top of them. His name was written on the envelope in Nick's familiar scrawl. He picked it up and couldn't help the tears that came when he saw the goofy little heart Nick had used to dot the i.

"Yeah Cat," he said absently. "I got one. We'll talk about it when I get in tomorrow. Bye."

He didn't wait for her to respond before he hung up on her.

It took him three hours to screw up the courage to open the letter.

_Gil,_

_I hope that you'll give me the time I need to figure out where I belong. If it's there with y'all, I hope that you'll still be there when I get back. I'll understand if you aren't though. _

_No matter what, don't ever forget that I love you. _

_Yours, as always,_

_Nick_

_PS T__hanks for pulling me out of the darkness... again._


	3. Chapter 3

Nick had just crossed the state line into California when the 'Rick-Phone rang.

He turned down the truck's tinny radio and hit the answer call button. He hadn't got half a syllable out of his mouth before he heard, "Of all the stupid stunts to pull, you leave us all Dear John letters. That's harsh, man."

"Hello to you, too, Warrick," Nick replied, saying a silent prayer that his best friend didn't seem pissed. "Miss me?"

"Hell no but Sara and Catherine have been weepy all night. Brass almost put a BOLO out on you. Greggo's trying to act all cool about it but I caught him staring at your locker about an hour ago with tears in his eyes."

Nick had to laugh at that even as he felt his throat close with emotion. He really was going to miss every single one of them, most especially the man at the other end of the line.

"Hey 'Rick?"

"Yeah man?"

His voice was thick when he replied, "Take care of 'em for me, will ya?"

"That's what family does, Nicky. We take care of each other and we're always waiting up until everyone finds their way home safely."

"Shit Warrick," Nick said, wiping furiously at his eyes. "You're making me cry and I swear if I have to pull this truck over..."

Warrick barked a laugh.

"Sorry to get sappy on ya, brother. So where you headed?"

"Mexico, so far," Nick said honestly. He trusted Warrick not to share the information until the time was right and to know exactly when that time was... whenever Gil asked for it. "I got a buddy racing in the Baja 1000 this week and thought I'd go check it out for a few days. After that, I honestly got no earthly idea. I hear Miami is still nice this time of year."

"Alright, Nicky. Promise me you'll call whenever you get where you're going and that you'll be careful? Don't pick up any hitchhikers or anything."

"Not even the cute ones?"

"Especially _not _the cute ones," Warrick teased. "Hey Nick?"

"Yeah man?"

"I love you. Don't be a stranger, okay?"

"I love you, too, Warrick."

Nick disconnected the call and turned the radio back up as he drove on down I-15.

_But these days it seems  
Nowhere is far enough away  
So I'm leaving Las Vegas today_

FINI


End file.
